Actaeon
by Amanthya
Summary: There is always a punishment for defying the higher powers... Rated T to be safe, NO LEMONS. SEQUEL to Persephone, JxS of course.


**Actaeon**

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Whispers in royal hallways, in formal dining chambers and on the stone streets...

Everyone spoke of the woman he kept. Old stories of his rebellion over her were retold, and delighted tension filled the air; what would the High King say about this Sarah?

"I've broken no rules," Jareth informed Dykalon curtly, when summoned.

"I am not amused," he growled in response, his dark eyes narrowing. They were his most notable features, wide and expressive, whereas the rest of his face was often masked in a courtly calm, as unadorned by emotion as his pure ebony robes were of decoration. Or at least, others rarely saw much emotion on his face...

The Goblin King inclined his head, expressionless. Even his eyes were unreadable. In this way, as in his fair coloring, he stood in contrast to the ruler of the Fae realm. The only trait they shared was their tendency towards dark clothing. In this shining golden room, almost empty for the moment of others, they stood out like black holes trying to over-power the other.

"This dereliction of your duties is rather to be expected of a Fae who is in his youth. But this fascination you have with mortals-"

"With one," he corrected evenly, as if it were no more of interest than the state of the skies outside the palace. His fingers did not clench at his side.

"Worse!" he thundered, losing more control as the conversation progressed. "If you were merely to toy with them, you would be no different than the others. It would be excusable."

"May I remind you, it was she who broke our laws?" Jareth said in a smooth, silken tone of perfect control, at ease despite the simmering rage of his superior.

Dykalon tensed, and Jareth's eyes narrowed watchfully. "Why must you tempt punishment, again and again? Is it not enough to be cast out of your rightful place, to rule a land of worthless other-worldly beings?"

He huffed out his breath in something that could be construed as a laugh. "Did you ever consider that that is not a punishment at all?"

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Sarah lifted her head from the small, furry garden creature she was examining to see him striding toward her. Immediately she rose to her feet from the stone bench and disappeared into the castle. He sighed in annoyance and merely teleported to her presence. She jumped when he appeared beside her without warning.

"I was hoping you'd be gone longer," was her greeting. She crossed her arms and shifted her weight to lean away from him against the wall, as if he hadn't startled her in the slightest.

He smiled what she'd termed his 'smug, I'm-think-I'm-soooo-sexy' smile, just to irritate her. "You fear my presence?"

"Of course not!" she declared hotly, shoving off the wall to get pointedly in his face. He promptly took the opportunity to wrap his arms around her waist, holding her captive.

"I'm not afraid of you!" She struggled to push his arms down and free herself, bumping her head against his chest in the process. She went completely still when his warm breath caressed her ear, then her neck as he whispered against it.

"I believe you are-you are afraid you will lose control...again," he taunted, laughing as she pushed away, face bright red. He let her flee down the hallway with the weak excuse of a book being better company than him.

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Dykalon's control broke entirely and he all but leapt from the throne to back-hand the younger man viciously, jerking his head to the side. "You dare mock me? You wish death?"

"Stop!" High Queen Halynkera burst out, forceful in her tears, unable to abide this display of violence. She jerked out of her statue-stillness to grab her husband's arm before he could swing again, her cloud-white hair tumbling about her in an echo of her panic.

Jareth slowly brought himself back to the same position as before, making no sound of pain nor effort to hide the mark on his face, silently scorning him with his eyes.

Dykalon stared at him in helpless fury. "What is it you seek?" he finally demanded. "What do you want?"

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"Sarah," he called, stepping into the over-sized bathroom.

There was a flurry of movement to his left, and he turned his head to see her bare arms jerk into the air from the side of the ivory bathing tub just before her head slipped down below the rim. She reappeared, sputtering, half a foot down the length of the claw-footed tub.

"You startled me!" she yelled, her words almost lost to his unabashed laughter.

All of his experience in concealing his emotions fled from him, and he almost doubled over in his amusement.

"Oh, shut up," Sarah snapped. "I mean it! Knock it off!" she raised a would-be threatening fist at him, clutching the side of the tub.

"I cannot take you seriously," he informed her when he'd caught his breath, "when you have a cloud of bubbles sitting like a hat on half of your head, you ridiculous girl."

She flushed, pawing at her hair to clear it, and he regain his composure. "I came to call you for dinner," he said, striding towards her.

Her eyes widened in alarm, and she slunk down further into her bath. "You could've sent a servant."

He grinned wickedly at her. "I recall you saying you did not like the goblins in your rooms. That leaves...why, me, alone, to come for you."

She blushed harder at his tone, laden with innuendos, and shrieked when he grabbed her wrist and hauled her to her feet. "Jareth!"

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"Is it worth it?" Halynkera asked quietly, seated across from him in a cozier corner of her private drawing room. She gripped his hands tightly over the small round table, staring unseeingly at its carved designs, not feeling the coldness of the wood or not caring.

He didn't answer for several long moments, allowing her to stroke his hand with her thumb. Finally he raised his eyes to her face. "Yes."

She flinched, and let go of him, withdrawing into her padded seat. "Why? How?" Then she didn't let him answer, bunching up the skirt of her white dress with one equally pale hand. "You have a place here, a home. Your family. How can she be worth it?" she pleaded with him to feel her pain, to see her tears, to come to his senses.

"There is nothing for me here," he muttered, grimacing at the moisture on her cheeks. "Almost nothing," he amended. "I need more than just a place in the Counsel, a lavish home full of people I do not care for. I need..." he trailed off, brows crimping uncertainly.

"What is it you see in her that you cannot find here?"

"Beauty," he continued more confidently, "not made by magic. Honesty. Passion, that is not merely lustful or meant to deceive anyone, but for life itself." He hesitated, then said almost ponderingly, "Innocence..."

She did not speak for a moment; her hands had been tensed, her mouth open to speak, until this last word. "You...have watched her for a long time, before you brought her here. You did not have to keep to that law, if you did not wish to."

"The Law of Possession," he murmured. "But I did wish to."

She continued on as if he hadn't spoken. "You father was concerned for a long while that you...perhaps, were...enamored of her youth."

It took a moment for that to sink in, and his entire body recoiled in disgust. "I am no molester of children!"

She reached out, trying to soothe him, and he allowed her to grip his forearms. "I know, I know," she said quickly. "I always believed you were merely...interested in someone who was so different-not only from you, but from her own kind. She has always verged on the call, telling her stories, and it was natural she'd catch your attention even before she found the right words.

"But Jareth...she is mortal. She will not live as long as our kind. Are those few short years worth being cast out of your rightful place as prince, the second heir to the throne? Banished to guard the land between ours and the humans...merely to keep her at your side?"

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He smoothed his hand down her bare arm as she lay beside him, covered in blood-red silk sheets. She shivered at the coolness of his fingers, and snuggled closer to him. When he shifted from his back onto his side to better see her, she lifted her head slightly. "What?"

"I enjoy looking at you," he said truthfully, without a trace of sensuality.

She gave him a faint, shy smile, one of the few she directed at him, and he treasured it. He rested his hand on her waist. "Do you know the story of Actaeon?"

She considered it, eyes flicking to the side. "No." She propped herself up on one arm, elbow bent, head supported on her open palm. "Tell me," she asked, tugging her covers modestly over her chest.

He smiled at the unthinking demureness of her gesture. "He was a prince who, while hunting, saw the goddess Artemis bathing. He was so enraptured he stayed to watch her instead of fleeing to protect her privacy. He was changed into a stag for this transgression."

"That sucks," Sarah said in response, which baffled him. She must have seen that, because she followed it up with, "That's a little unfair."

"Ah, your favorite word," he said, sitting up and drawing her closer. After a moment of persuasion, she rested her head on his lap. "Do you ever tire of being the loser in our verbal sparring?" he teased her.

"I will head-butt you," she warned, her words half-muffled by the blankets. "Not in the head." She wiggled her head a little to add weight to her threat.

He laughed and stroked her hair.

Her curiosity got the best of her, as always. "Why did you mention him?"

"I know a man who also was started onto a path of wrongdoing the day he saw the one he would come to love," he explained, trailing his fingers along her spine. "He, too, was changed, as punishment."

"Into an animal?"

"No, something far worse." He snorted. "Into a ruler."

She got up, regarding him with disbelief. "Yeah, okay. 'Cause that's worse."

"It depends on your point of view," he agreed, and reached out to cup her face, drawing her in for a kiss.

Her stomach rumbled softly. "I'm hungry," she managed to say, between soft, shiver-inducing kisses. The sheet fell down around her, revealing creamy flesh and curves that begged for his touch, even if her lips said otherwise. The coldness of the room had a delightful effect on her bare skin.

"As am I," he breathed into her mouth, stroking her tongue with his own.

"Not the same," she insisted breathily as he pinned her down on the bed, holding her wrists with one hand.

"You need to work on your compliance, Sarah," he said in mock-seriousness. "Shall we practice?"

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_A/N: Again, written on my lunch break, as a plot suddenly occurred to me, and I know people wanted to see more._

_This is actually less dark and less sensual in tone that its predecessor, but I couldn't get it to match the tone of the first fic no matter what I did. It refused to be sexier, or scarier, and settled on being more thoughtful, and even more humorous. It also refused to be written from Sarah's point of view, because apparently it was time to consider what Jareth had gone through in order to keep her at his side._

_I'm sorry if it disappoints. Honestly, I wasn't expecting to write a sequel, and I know this one didn't cover a lot of Sarah's struggle about their physical relationship, though you can see hints of that. If that's what you want to see, I'd keep an eye on Does She Know She's Special? because that's a multi-chapter fic which will have plenty of time to explore that topic. Or perhaps I will one day write a sequel to this sequel, who knows?_

_http:/ www. paleothea. com/ Men. html Credit for info on the men of the myths._


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